


we’ve been here all along

by taizi



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: 2k7, Broken Families, Forgiveness, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 19:10:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16980165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi
Summary: “Don’t call him, Casey,please.Don't—he’s always so busy, I don’t want to bother him.”“What are you—wait, is that why you came here, instead of home? You thought you’dbotherhim? Mikey, you gotshot.”“Leo’s gone,” the kid said, so frankly it took Casey by surprise. “Raph’s never around. All that’s left is Donnie, and if I…. I don’t want to mess it up, I don’t want to make him leave, too. Please don’t call him. I need him to stay.”





	1. Chapter 1

When Casey’s cell rang, he checked the Caller I.D. warily—then flipped the phone open right away and put it to his ear.

“Hey, Mike,” he greeted, hoping he didn’t sound too suspicous. “What’s up?”

It wasn’t often his green buddies called anymore. They always answered when Casey and April rang them up, the lair was always open to their two human friends whenever they came by to visit, but there was a _lacking_ to their home and their family that didn’t used to be there.

Donnie was wrapped up in work, Raph was—well, _Casey_ knew what Raph was up to. Splinter was showing his age, something sad and weary in his beady black eyes, something that got heavier every day his oldest son was still gone.

 _Then why the hell did you make him leave?_ Casey wanted to ask. He wouldn’t, no one would talk to the wise old rat like that, but _some days…_

“ _Is April there?”_ was Mikey’s reply, and Casey sat upright immediately. Something in the kid’s voice was _off._

“Nah, she went home a few hours ago.” He was already moving, climbing off the couch and headed toward the window. The fire escape was where the guys usually parked it until they were sure of their welcome, and he usually kept it unlocked for that reason; but there were no bright eyes waiting for him there in the looming dark, no shelled shape crouched on the metal stairs. “Mike?”

“ _’m on the roof. I’ll be down in a minute.”_

And that was normally ninja-speak for anywhere from five to twelve seconds. Tonight, it was definitely closer to two minutes than one, and Casey’s nerves were shot by the time Mikey swung into view. He dropped clumsily onto the landing by Casey’s window, and wobbled, and Casey reached out with both arms to catch him before—well, they were on the seventh floor, and mutagen-reinforced keratin or not, his shell wouldn’t survive that kind of fall.

He ended up taking most of Mikey’s weight on their way across the small living room, back to the couch. Once they made it, Mikey sank against the cushions with a grateful sigh, and Casey’s hands came away from him bloody.

“Mikey, what the _fuck.”_

“S'just a flesh wound,” the blue-eyed turtle managed around half a smile. Casey opted to ignore him, not exactly finding any humor in their situation, and leaned over to turn on the lamp—and then it was pretty obvious right away where the blood came from.

“You got _shot,”_ Casey accused hotly, panic swelling at the hole in his friend’s thigh. “That sure don’t _look_ like a flesh wound, Mike.”

It looked pretty clean, and when Casey bent his leg at the knee and eased up slowly, he found an exit wound. Okay, it was an in-and-out, there was _that_ at least. But the wound on the back of Mikey’s thigh was a lot bigger, maybe worthy of stitches. Which took this straight out of his hands. _Keep leg elevated, stop the bleeding, call Donnie. And get an answer out of Mike while you’re at it._ “What the hell have you been doing?”

His laundry basket was sitting in the armchair; he reached over without moving and fished out a clean towel, folding it into a makeshift compress. He pushed down against the wound, and it was either because of shock or blood loss, but Mikey barely reacted. 

“My van broke down again,” he muttered, deflated at Casey’s sharp tone. “Had to hoof it back from Port Morris. Woulda been fine, but—there were these guys, a bunch of ‘em, and they were followin’ a few kids home from a bar, and—I couldn’t just let it happen, Case. I know ’m not supposed to fight anymore, I didn’t even have my ‘chucks on me, but I couldn’t just—”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Casey said, reaching over to nudge Mikey’s chin back up. “You did good, buddy. Sorry I bit your head off. D'you think you can hold this down for me? I’m gonna call Don, just—”

“No!” Mikey’s eyes flew wide, pupils shrinking. “Don’t call Don!”   

“Holy shit,” Casey said eloquently, heart leaping in his chest in surprise. “Jesus, _why?”_    

“Don’t call him, Casey, _please._ Don't—he’s always so busy, I don’t want to bother him.”

“What are you—wait, is that why you came here, instead of home? You thought you’d _bother_ him? Mikey, you got _shot.”_

“Leo’s gone,” the kid said, so frankly it took Casey by surprise. “Raph’s never around. All that’s left is Donnie, and if I…. I don’t want to mess it up, I don’t want to make him leave, too. Please don’t call him. I need him to stay.”

And—okay. Okay, maybe Casey would have to have words with Splinter, after all. Because his favorite family of mutants was fracturing, folding right down the middle, and this wide-eyed kid Casey loved like a brother was bleeding all over his couch, trying to convince Casey it made sense _not_ to call his doctor, because his doctor wouldn’t want to be bothered. There was a hole in his leg and he had to be hurting, he dragged himself all the way to Casey’s apartment from the Bronx and god only knew how he managed it, and he was watching Casey with painful, backwards hope in every inch of his freckled face.

“Mike,” he said, quietly, “I gotta call Don. I can't—you probably need stitches, or staples, and I can’t do that here. And he’ll have somethin’ to give you for the pain.” Mikey’s face crumpled, and Casey felt like a heel. “He’s not—Mike, I don’t know why you think he’s gonna be pissed, but he won’t be, I promise.”

And he wasn’t.

And two hours after Mikey showed up in the first place, Casey could hear them talking in the living room all the way from his bedroom, low and soft and just-for-each-other.

“Why on earth didn’t you come to me?” Donnie was saying. “What if it had been worse? What if you bled out before I could get here? Mikey,” his voice almost broke, “I can’t do this without you. I need you to stay.”

And he sounded every bit like Mike had earlier, when Mike had said just about the same thing; right down to the fear, and the hurt, and the love that must have felt like the weight of the world on his back.


	2. Chapter 2

Casey makes it through the hidden door in time to catch the tail end of Raph saying something along the lines of  _“probably his own damn fault anyway,”_ and then Don’s moving, with ninja-speed and sixteen odd years of lethal training and something wounded and furious in the edges of his thunderous glare.

His eyes are slitted and white with anger and Casey thinks,  _Woah._ What the hell did he just walk in on?

“Donnie – ” Mike tries to interject, looking pale. He’s on his feet, but barely, clutching the side of the couch for support with a white-knuckled hand, and Casey’s across the room before he makes any conscious decision to move, offering a much more helpful shoulder for Mike to lean against.

He’s the reason Casey’s here in the first place. Something about his honorary little brothers stitching each other up in his living room at one a.m. tends to get under his skin, and he’s been downright useless at work these last couple days, worrying about the kid.

“You alright, freckles?” he asks, and Mike spares him a strained smile.

“I’m a hundred and ten percent, dude. Now just help me convince these two idiots that.”

“You said you’d look at his damn van,” Donnie’s snapping, like a lion poked with a stick one too many times – looking almost ready to  _fight_ Raphael right there, in the middle of the warmly lit lair. “You told him you would, and you  _didn’t_. And it broke down on him in the middle of the Bronx, and he – ”

_“Donnie,”_ Mike says again, and Casey notices the way his eyes skate right over Raph’s face, like it isn’t safe to linger there. Don glances over his shoulder, and Mike catches his gaze and holds onto it.

_He’s got some leader in him,_ Casey thinks with a faint sense of pride, because the kid is commanding the room in a simple and understated way that his siblings probably don’t even recognize as an echo of their wayward blue-banded brother. Mike softens it up with a sideways grin, and beckons with the hand that isn’t pressing desperate bruises into Casey’s arm. 

“C'mon, man, don’t. You’re gonna wake up Splinter. And you promised you’d watch  _A Cinderella Story_ with me.”

“I never promised you anything like that,” Don replies, with a softening of his own. But he’s moving away from Raph and back towards his youngest brother, and seems to notice Casey, Human Crutch, for the first time.

“Hi, Jones,” he says, and “Thank you,” which was thanks for probably a dozen things all at once, and Casey relinquishes his armful of Michelangelo with a flourish that makes the brown-eyed turtle laugh a little. And the Hilary Duff DVD goes in, after all, the intro starting by the time Casey hooks a hand around Raph’s elbow and hauls him up the stairs.

“You can’t be like this,” is what he says the moment it’s just the two of them alone. “Dude, you wanna go out and do your vigilante dance every night, go for it – ain’t like I’m gonna stop you. And your brothers aren’t stupid. They know what you’re doing, and the fact that they’re still covering for you means they ain’t gonna stop you, either.” He doesn’t give Raph more than a second to ingest that before he’s hurtling on. “So what the hell is with all the attitude? I mean, even for you, this is – ”

“I know,” Raph bites out, and there’s something simmering in his gold eyes that looks like betrayal, but Casey will punch him in the mouth if he comes right out and says something stupid about  _picking sides._

Raph knows it, too, and depends on Casey to tell him like it is even when he doesn’t want to hear it; so a few steadying breaths later, he says, “Look, I dunno, man. It’s just – Don’s always on my shell about shit lately, and tonight it’s Mikey’s stupid van. Cars that old break down all the time, it ain’t like – ”

“They didn’t tell you he got shot, did they?” Casey asks plainly, without mercy, and only regrets it a little when the color drains out of Raph’s face. “Yeah, I figured. Probably why Mikey wanted you goons to keep your voices down. I don’t think he’s planning on telling Splinter either. The really  _amazing_ thing, though,” he continues, “is that a year ago, you would have known just by  _looking_ at the kid that something was wrong.”

Raph is only still for a split second, the barest fraction of time, before he’s bursting into motion. Heading towards the door in the direction of his only remaining brothers, like that part of himself that boasts  _protector_ and  _shield,_ the part of himself Casey knows he’s the most proud of, is waking up from a long hibernation.

But there’s something tight and ugly squeezing Casey’s heart to a muddy pulp, and he grabs Raph by the arm before he can make it too far.

“Leo left them, too,” he says. “And they’re not okay.”  _‘I need you to stay,’_ he can still hear them saying, soft and hurt and beseeching, bloody hands and bleeding hearts and no home left but one another. “You gotta stick around, man,” he adds, letting go. “You gotta be here.”

Something trembles for a moment, something too big for words, and god, this family is so fractured. But there’s light like dying stars in Raph’s eyes, something terrible and burning and so full of single-minded devotion it  _has_ to hurt.

And when Casey steps out to the landing, it’s to find Raph easing onto the couch on Mike’s free side, rubbing an uncertain hand over the crown of the youngest turtle’s head – and Donnie is tense and angry but he’s keeping the peace, and Mikey’s voice only hitches a few times as he keeps his silly commentary going, accepting the apology Raph’s gentle presence suggests for Raph’s sake and despite his own. All three of them at least  _trying_ to make ends meet with one another.

And it’s the trying that makes a difference. For the first time since the last time Leo wrote a letter home, Casey thinks they’re gonna make it.

 


End file.
